Business/VoIP Phone Systems & Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

PBX Phones, VoIP Phone Systems and Business Phone Systems Jericho

Our Telecom division specializes in the installation, testing, and finding wires that are considered as low voltage cabling. Low voltage wiring has been adapted as a critical requirement for businesses to run efficient.

Are you planning or in the process of construction? Networks By Design, Inc. can help you during construction. In this modern world of technology, people are starting to want Low Voltage Wiring installed in their buildings, but they don’t always realize when the appropriate time to have these wires installed is. A few examples of Low Voltage Wiring are: Cat 5e Networking Wire, Cat 6 Networking Wire, HDMI, Cat 3 Telephone wire, Cat 5 Telephone Wire, speaker wire, etc. These wires can be used but not limited to: Supplying Internet to a computer and/or device, connecting video from cable tv box to TV, etc.

Why during construction is the best time to install Low Voltage Wiring? – Usually during construction, walls are open and are stripped down to the studding. We can easily snake wiring through the building with the walls open and will be able to see any possible obstacles that might have not been seen if the walls were closed up.

I just closed up the walls. Can Low Voltage Wires still be installed? – Yes, but keep in mind that every building structure is built differently. Even though Networks By Design, Inc. has over 40 years worth of experience in running Low Voltage Wires, there may be obstacles in the wall that we cannot see if the walls are closed up. If we run into obstacles in the wall we will alert you and give you a few ideas on how to complete the job.

Acts of God – In the past few years most of the Tri-state area has had unfortunately experiences (to a degree) with Hurricanes, flooding, minor Earthquakes, Blizzards, and any other weather events. All these weather events can cause havoc to Low Voltage Wires. During super storm Sandy, a lot of peoples’ buildings were flooded causing damage to everything, including Low Voltage wiring. the water that flooded these buildings usually contains chemicals, one of which is salt, which does not mix with Electronics. Salt is very conductive and can damage Electronics in many ways. If any Low Voltage wire was to enter into these contaminated flood waters and stay submerged in the water for any length of time, the salt and any other chemicals can be soaked up into the Low Voltage Wiring so the next time these wires get powered by voltage, more damage can occur. If your building got flooded, Networks By Design, Inc. recommends removing all wiring and re-wiring with new Low Voltage Wiring.

What is the difference between Indoor Wiring and Outdoor Wiring? – Indoor Wires are manufacture red just for inside the building and protected by the weather as the same with Outdoor Wiring are manufactured just for outside of the building and protected to stand up against the weather. These wires cannot be used other for their manufactured purpose. For Example, if you took an outdoor rated cable and ran it inside the building, if a Fire Marshall shall inspect the wiring, that Fire Marshal might fail you and/or tell you to replace it with the corrected Indoor Wiring.

•Outdoor Rated cable: is made up of Hazardous chemicals to withstand the weather, if/and when that cable ever gets burned in a fire, that cable will release those Hazardous chemicals into the air you breathe.

•Indoor Rate cable: is not made to withstand the weather outside and can break down to create damage to any electric equipment indoors and/or to not conduct any power to those indoor equipment.

•Indoor/outdoor Rated Cable: is manufactured for both indoors and outdoors, meaning that this type of cable is safe for both applications. So this type of wire can be used for both inside a building and outside of the building, which will be exposed to the weather.

Can’t I just get my Electrician to run these wires, since I have him onsite – Networks By Design, Inc. does not recommend anyone (not in the Telecom/Computer/Wiring Specialist field), to run any Low Voltage Cable. People not in these fields mentioned above, may not understand all of the practices associated with running Low Voltage wiring and might run the incorrect wire indoors and/or the incorrect wire outdoors.

My Electrician ran phone wire between my house and another building structure on my property, why can’t I use that for Wireless/Computers onto the internet? – Straight up Telephone cable (PE89) is only made for telephones; they sometimes have up to 50 small wires inside. These wires may look the same as Cat 5e Ethernet Networking Wire, but most of them are not twisted. For any networking device: Computers, DVR, Wireless Access Points, etc. they need at least 2-4 pairs of Twisted Wire. If the small wires, inside of the one wire are not twisted together, then the networking devices will not work properly.

How many Cat 5e Wires do I need? - Networks By Design, Inc. recommends at least 1 Computer Data/Internet Port and 1 Telephone port next to every outlet. We see this problem all the time, below is an example. Let say Dave opens an office and only puts 1 Data/Computer Port and 1 Telephone port where every will be computer is going to, when he moves in. Let say down the road he decides to move the location of a floor standing copier and/or computer to a wall where there is no Computer data port and/or telephone ports. Now he has to either run a cable or two around the room, or call a telecom wire installer for additional money to install a Computer data port / telephone port on that wall.

Why do I need a Patch Panel in my building? – You don’t. Networks By Design, Inc. recommends a patch panel to help organize those wires for you, plus the labor is about the same time either way.

How do you terminate your wiring? - We will only terminate wires to either: Female Jack, Male Crimp Plug, Patch Panel, coupler, and punch down splicing box. We try to avoid using electrical tape to terminate our wiring, because it is very sloppy work that anyone can do, plus it is not for a permanent fix. If and when we have to terminate wires using electrical tape, will only be used to as a temporary solution until a permanent solution is resolved or if someone’s life is at stake, otherwise a technician will take their time to terminate the wire correctly.

How does my VOIP Phone system effect my computer network? –If you have 1 or two phones tops then you will not have too much problems, if is when you have two or more phones that is when problems arise. VoIP phone system is a LAN Line phone that requires an active Internet Connection from your Internet Service Provider like: Verizon, Time Warner, Cablevision, At&t, etc. These VOIP Phones usually gets connected in-between your computer/device and router/networking switch. Since these VOIP phones are connected this way, they will slow down your internet speed going to the computer/device and can cause corruption to data files over your computer network. The more phones and/or activity with these phones, the more damage can occur. If you still want to continue using the VOIP Phone System, then Networks By Design, Inc. will recommend a proposal to split your VOIP phone system from your computer network, by preventing corruption that may occur, to slowness in transferring files over the network. By splitting your VOIP phone system from your computers is not hard at all, it will require additional wiring only for the phones and additional routers to break up the VOIP Phone System Network from the computer network. If your VOIP phone system is slowing down your internet speed even after the splitting of the devices, then you might have to upgrade your Internet Server Provider bandwidth speed to be able to handle a better connection.